Alexander'
by Tjin
Summary: BtVSAndromeda XOver.Xander's perception of the world is slightly different then others.
1. Alexander

I Do not own ANY Characters in this story.

--

"Alexander." The whispered voice echoed through the darkness after an eternity of silence.

For an agonizing moment 'Alexander' analyzed the signal before sending it to the only other person he had been in contact with for the last two centuries.

Xander blinked as the signal was piped through the speakers. "Alexander is that what I think it is?" Xander asked in shock as the message replayed itself.

"That is affirmative Xander, that was a Commonwealth High guard command recall, Signal ident confirms sender as the 'Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge' AI model GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-182." Alexander said before nodding at the shocked look on Xander's face.

""That's the Andromeda." Lex said from the one screen Xander could see from his position.

Thinking about it Xander finally nodded as well as he could. "Alright, it seems we have a Highguard commander out there and a sistership that may be in need of help." Xander said before coming to a decision. "Set course for Rendezvous and send sig-int informing Andromeda we will be there." Xander said to Lex as the image blinked away to do what it could. Turning his gaze to the speaker Xander sighed. "Alexander, patch me into C&C and initiate subroutine one-fifteen mark three." Xander said as the massive engines started to burn what little fuel remained on their way to the slipstream.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Lex asked as he came back from his assigned task

"You've never done this before, Perhaps it would be better to send Sig-int and wait for the Andromeda's arrival." Alexander said as Lex nodded in agreement.

Xander shook his head at the thought, "We don't know Andromeda's situation, she may be in deeper need of repairs than us and for all we know she doesn't have a clue as to what's going on in the galaxy." Xander reminded them before nodding to Lex. "Let's get there and find out what we have to work with."

As the massive ship moved into the slipstream point Xander felt the program take effect as it rerouted his awareness into the ships pilot seat.

Getting accustomed to the new form, Xander used the forward sensors to lock on to the slip point before shaking his head in disbelief. "Get ready gang, this is gonna be rough."

With a quick pulse of energy the Commonwealth Glorious Heritage class heavy cruiser 'Alexander' entered Slipstream.

--

The Andromeda Ascendant was NOT having a good day.

She had arrived at the Assembly location safely only to fall into an energy net that knocked most of her guns offline, the few Point Defense Guns she had left were currently busy attempting to keep the pirate fleet away in hopes her crew could get her back up and running before the pirates managed to get close enough to drop a boarding pod.

The Holographic representation flickered to life aboard the bridge as the crew scrambled about their tasks with a frenzy only the prospect of death could work in them.

"Captain, incoming transmission." Andromeda said as the captain pulled his head out from under the console he had been working on.

"Tell that Drago-Kazov scum he isn't getting his hands on you without a fight." Dylan growled before Andromeda cut him off.

"Captain the message did not originate from the Pirates." Andromeda said as the crew stopped their work to stare at her in confusion.

"Who sent the message then?" Beka asked as they all nodded at the question.

"It came from a slipstream point in sector four four mark one, it says… Yippy-Ki-Yay."

Dylan blinked in shock as the words sunk in before finally getting control of his voice again. "Andromeda send a widespread signal of our EXACT location along with locations of the enemy, everyone… brace for this."

An object exiting slipstream requires massive amounts of energy to slow itself to below the speed of light (Or it would appear to take several days just for a ship to exit slipstream.) usually a ship slows to a near stop to keep from running into other Ships/Planets/asteroids or other space born objects.

In the history of the Commonwealth there have been only five ships that pulled a successful .C translation.

The 'Alexander' had perfected the tactic into an art form.

The first warning the pirates had that a new player was on the field came with the near simultaneous destruction of nearly a dozen of their battleships.

When two of their War-Wagons seemed to disintegrate they figured out it was a Big player.

Three seconds after the War-Wagons were destroyed they finally saw their attacker on the scanners, Fifteen seconds later the survivors of the pirate fleet managed to make it to slipstream.

"Twenty-Seven seconds." Harper whispered in shock as everyone stared at the debris cloud that had been threatening their lives less than half a minute earlier.

"Rommie, hail the Alexander and give them my thanks for the timely save." Dylan said with a smile before looking back at his crew. "Let's get Andromeda's systems back up and running and prepare to receive guests."

"Captain, Alexander reports energy at critical levels, emergency Anti-Protons were exhausted by the AP cannons, He's going to attempt a Solar Burn off but reports he's going to have to go to standby when he returns to a safe velocity." Andromeda reported.

Watching the vessel use friction from this system's sun to decelerate, Dylan grimaced at the thought of going into combat with energy levels at that critical state. "On second thought, let's get Andromeda up and running and go rescue our savior."

--

Xander's vision returned to him as he looked into the face he thought lost centuries ago. "Rommie… you look taller."

The avatar for the Andromeda Ascendant looked at the bodiless head of her counterpart's avatar before picking Xander's head up carefully. "What in the designer's name happened to you?" she demanded then looked at the piled bodies surrounding them. "And where did all these Nietzscheans come from."

Xander blinked at her for a moment before taking a useless breath. "Well Rommie, when a Nietzschean female REALLY likes a Nietzschean Male." He trailed off at the glare she sent his way before looking at the gathered bodies on the deck. "Well in truth they where a bit more lively when they made it onboard… but after jumping them into a Rad-Cloud and dropping the shields they settled down fast enough, Fried my Ram-Scoop but personally I think it was worth it." He said before glancing back at her. "How did your find me in all this anyways?"

"You were mumbling about rubber chickens in your stand-by mode." Andromeda responded as she looked around the broken and lifeless bridge. "Where's your Pilot? I need to get them back to me and see if I can revive them."

"I'm the pilot. Our original one kinda got dead when the Nietzscheans attacked and then they became an endangered species around here and then… nothing, for two hundred years, nothing. It was very boring, So Alexander rigged up a Dim-World called Sunnydale and I spent a couple of lifetimes learning how humans get this… Gut feeling that allows them to pilot in slipstream." He said as Andromeda stared at him in shock. "Anyways I've been training as a pilot and when I got your signal we came running, forward probe reported your distress and we made our .C Translation."

"Alexander." Rommie said before she was interrupted by the head.

"Xander. I'm Xander, the Ship's AI is Alexander and the monitors are Lex." Xander explained

Nodding in understanding, Rommie walked back towards the Maru. "Lets keep your ability to pilot yourself our little secret, just tell everyone your pilot is dead." Rommie said as they stepped aboard the Eureka Maru and headed back towards the Andromeda.

--

Dylan stared at the head for several moments before looking back to his own Avatar. "And this is normal for him?" he asked as the head mumbled about blue monkeys as it sat in the recharge unit waiting for Harper to work on a new body.

"Yes sir, he's spent the last two hundred years by himself, from what I could gather he was considered eccentric before the war. 'Alexander' served with distinction in both battles of Trafalger's Gap and Epsilon Prime, he lead the third task force in Operation 'Redemption' against the Bazoy just before the war with the Nietzscheans. His exploits during the war are few and far between… well the 'Reports' of his exploits are few and far between." Rommie explained as she did another passive scan of 'Alexander'.

The battle damage was extensive, and most of the key functions seemed to be held together with a wild array of patch jobs and emergency fixes, but even with the damage the ship managed to decimate a fleet that would have been a challenge for her.

"I believe his actual combat experiences to be somewhat higher than recorded." Andromeda said quietly as she watched the nearly broken body of one of her brothers as it drifted beside her.

/What memories do you hide Alexander, what terrors have you survived through force of will alone./ she wondered as she locked the images of her own nightmares into the deepest recesses of her mind.

Dylan for his part simply nodded as if in agreement to Andromeda's thoughts.

--

Alexander felt his systems slowly start to come back online as the small crew aboard Andromeda worked to put him back into some semblance of order, slowly shifting through his audio pickups he checked which ones were in need of repair.

-South Corridor Twenty Seven: "I can't believe something with this much damage could orbit an asteroid much less take out those pirates as fast as it did." He ran the voice through the information Andromeda had given him and placed a name to the voice.

Beka Valentine, captain of the Eureka Maru and Andromeda's second in command.

"Do not ever doubt a beings will to survive." A gruff voice said as Alexanders visual receivers finally came on in that section.

Ignoring the urge to destroy the alien being he checked the report again for the nineteen thousandth time since first receiving the files. Reverend Behemial Far Traveler (Rev Bem) a Wayist Magog.

Refusing to let his thoughts run that one into circles, Alexander took in the Image of Beka Vaentine.

"I wouldn't if I where you." A voice echoed through his mindscape as he turned to the small form he had been warned was coming.

"Seamus Zelazny Harper, I would have thought Andromeda would have made sure you were housebroken before she allowed you on me." Alexander said as he shifted his mental form so as to simply tower over Harper instead of dominating his entire view as he had been.

Harper looked at the towering AI for a moment before smirking at him. "You're doing that to intimidate me aren't you… it won't work, I'm far too manly to be intimidated by size alone." He joked and swallowed at the grin that split the AI's face before it shrunk again to closer to his size.

"Most guys wouldn't brag about that." Alexander said before walking towards the dark section of his world. "Over here's the damaged areas."

Seamus grinned at the joke before following the AI. /Nowhere near as good looking as Rommie but his sense of humor should make it interesting./ 


	2. Alexander 2

Rommie Stared at the estimated reports with a frown before heading towards the repair bay.

As she stepped in she looked up at the almost complete Xander as he hopped around on one leg and shook her head at the horrible shirt he was wearing /Probably stole it from Harper./ she thought before looking down at the report again. "Alex…" She stopped at the look he sent her and realized her mistake. "Xander." She corrected before continuing. "I've been looking over the report Beca, Harper and Rev Bem have sent me about you." She said as Xander just stared at her for a second before turning away.

"You don't want to know Rommie." He said simply before going to work on a leg that was sitting on the repair table.

Watching the Android work for a moment Rommie stepped around him and set the data pad in front of him. "One AP Cannon, Three missile ports and a single mine-deployer." She said as Xander glanced at the pad before looking back down.

"Two ports, port seventeen was open when I hit the Rad-cloud, it reads as ready but it's non-functional." Xander said a she tried to avoid answering the question he knew was coming.

Finally growing tired with his stall tactics Rommie grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "How did you beat that fleet with only two missile ports?" She demanded as Xander tried to avoid her glare before turning away from her grip.

"You really don't want to know." Xander said as he tried to find something, anything to focus on besides his sisterships glare.

Rommie finally nodded as she stepped in front of him again. "I believe you Xander, there are a lot of things I don't want to know, I Don't want to know the most miniscule details of Aparan breeding habits, I don't want to know how the Nietzschean's won the battle of Nera 4 by wearing the skins of our fallen soldiers to fool the auto-defenses and I don't want to know about the Magog Worldship that is on it's way here." Rommie said before swallowing at the memories of the worldship before straightening again and forcing the memories away. "Unfortunately as a Highguard Warship I don't have the option to remain ignorant." Rommie said as Xander finally looked up at her.

Taking an unneeded breath Xander let out a sigh. "Lifepods." He whispered before explaining at Rommies confused look. "The lifepods contain enough fuel to slow them down from anything below the speed of light, if you expend that fuel in one burst while traveling at just below Cee they can break the light-barrier by almost fifteen percent, the pod itself will disintegrate in a little under two point three seconds, but at one point one five the speed of light that gives them plenty of time to hit there target." Xander said before looking up at the shocked expression on Rommies face as she tried to calculate the damage potential of such an impact.

Finally coming to the conclusion that being hit by something moving that fast would be bad Rommie nodded "You where right, I didn't want to know." She said as she tried to imagine the desperation required for a mind to come up with such a tactic. Feeling vaguely sick Rommie looked at Xander before slipping the pad into one of her uniforms pockets. "Let's keep this to ourselves." Rommie said as she prayed to whatever was listening that none of the crew would ask the same question she had.

Nodding in agreement Xander turned back to his leg "We seem to be keeping a lot to ourselves." He said as Andromeda's Avatar finally left.

--

'Alexander' smiled as the last of his internal sensors came back online. Looking over at the person that made it possible he shook his head at the arrogant grin on harpers face. "Yeah yeah, you're still short though." Alexander said before disappearing with a laugh at Harpers indignant shout.

Wading through the mountains of data he had set up and collected from the Dim-World he had created for Xander the smile slowly started to fade away as he realized his program had been tampered with. "Where did you come from." He asked as a program file he had NOT created floated before him.

With a frown he finally activated the illegal program and stared in shock at the amount of energy it took to compile. After several seconds of rising power signatures he reached for the termination order when a surge of power ran through his system knocking Alexander out and forcing him to reset his cognitive functions.

On the Eureka Maru Seamus Harper screamed in pain as the energy ripped through his data ports surge protectors and started burn through his mind with the power of a small sun.

He was barely conscious as a pair of hands pulled the probe out of his neck and let him collapse into unconsciousness.

--

Alexander blinked as he came back online and heard several voices yelling for his attention.

Projecting himself into the docking bay he tried to calm everyone down as he ran a scan of all his systems looking for any new damage.

Holding his hands out to forestall anymore yelling on Beca's part he tried to allay any fears. "Mister Harper was connected to my systems when an information surge happened, it was a substantial surge but fortunately it was a subsidiary data surge, very painful for organics." He said as he made a note that it wasn't pleasant for AI's either. "But there has never been any lasting damage from one." He explained as he finished scanning the Data and turned to the physical scans for damage. "He will wake up with a headache and the urge to recite the Alphabet or his multiplication table's both will fade in an hours time as his mind processes the data, he will be fine I…" he trailed off as his scans reached the bridge. "Have a new passenger?" he asked in confusion before disappearing from the docking bay, leaving a very confused crew behind.

--

In the great darkness of space a vessel moved, slowly taking hundreds of years to reach its destination.

In the deepest pit of the Magog worldship a shadowed form stared into the abyss of time and swelled with rage at it's failing.

A hundred years earlier it held the Avatar of its greatest enemy in the palm of its hand, and it had let its enemy slip away.

Xander had escaped its trap with nothing more serious then missing a virtual eye.

If he had managed to kill the brat he would have been able to take over the avatars mind and eventually the 'Alexander' itself.

Thinking of the ship brought back memories of the first time he had gone up against the Highguard cruiser and how it had managed to help a select few of the Solar Avatars to escape his trap.

Throughout the worldship the Magog cowered at the inhuman scream that echoed through the massive vessel as the shadows rage finally boiled over.

--


	3. Alexander 3

Alexander 3

They were up to something.

He didn't know what that something was exactly, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were up to something.

The fact he had made it this far into the enemy's defensive net was his first clue.

"The easy way is always mined," he whispered to himself as he dedicated a few more cycles to examining the date his scanners were picking up.

He watched the shattered remains of the enemy fleet scramble before him as he advanced like the coming of Death itself, then frowned at the battle map as a half dozen of the enemy ships broke off and turned on him in what he could only assume was a suicide run.

He had to assume that due to the fact none of the ships made it closer than extreme range before his slip fighters and smart missiles wiped them from the universe.

Throwing even more power into the sensors, Xander wondered again what he had missed. After all, if a battle was going this well it meant either the sudden and unlamented death of the demonic entity known as Murphy… "Or we're about to walk into an ambush," he muttered before looking at the map once again.

"Break off! All ships, break off! Come around to one-one mark seven six three and prepare for long range missile engagement." He ordered as the enemy fleet continued to plunge towards their homeworld in a desperate bid to escape.

He watched as his Nietzchean commanders wavered for a moment because their blood rage urged them to follow the fleeing enemy to the very gates of the underworld.

"Weapons officer!" He shouted and smiled at the quick response from that station. "Lock onto any ship that refuses my orders and prepare to fire." He listened to the stunned acknowledgement.

Waiting a moment for the lock to be noticed by his wayward ships he turned to his Comm officer and smiled, "Now please resend the order and tell them to… expedite."

The orders were received and he smiled when the nine cruisers turned and made their way back to him at full military speed.

Nodding as the ships pulled into position, he reminded himself to… /Reprimand the captains of those ships later./

Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he watched the command map and grinned when twenty heavy battle wagons pulled out of the asteroid field as three missile carriers slipped around the planet to expose their long range broadside to his fleet.

"Impressive, not going to stand up to me in a straight fight, but if they had managed to catch us blind we'd be in for a hurting before we broke through." He said in appreciation for his opponent's tactics. "There's probably another skirmish fleet or two out there, along with the planetary defenses. We would have had a hard time taking and holding the planet if we rushed them."

Thinking of the situation again, he smiled at the map before turning towards his pilot, "All ships are ordered to link defenses to us and drop to 'Armus' if we fall." He ordered before singling out a battle wagon for execution. "All ships, target Tango-Tango one niner seven and prepare for volley launch. Astro, plot us a course and bring us into three hundred K-clicks. Let's beat these toys to scrap."

--

Xander growled as he glared at the smirking avatar before looking back at the estimated losses for the battle. Seventy-three percent of the fleet he had entered the system with had been lost. A total of ninety-six ships and their crews wiped from existence along with the planet and every single one of its occupants. An estimated eight billion people dead in an instant.

"Nova bombs were not part of the scenario," he complained as Rommie just shrugged.

"Nova bombs were not ireported/i and so you assumed there were none." She corrected with a grin at the growling android before her.

"No sane person would nova their own sun just to keep us from taking their world," he claimed before thinking of the history of violence the world had attained before he had entered the system. "They weren't…" he got out before his duplicate interrupted him.

"Xander, get to Andromeda's infirmary, inow/i

Looking at his sibling of sorts, both Androids took off at a run that would leave any slayer in the dust.

--

She was not having a good day. The last thing she remembered was standing over the grave of Alexander Lavelle Harris as the coffin had been lowered into the ground by several distraught slayers and then…nothing.

She had the sense that time had passed, but she could not even begin to guess how long, then she was waking up in a weird military style hospital with a purple skinned demon girl standing over her.

That led her to this point, standing with her back to the wall and fending off several human looking beings that yelled at her in a weird language.

The door at the back of the room opened with a hiss as two more people entered moving too fast to be human.

The first was a dark haired woman that may have been a slayer.

The second was the one that caught her attention though.

--

Xander entered the infirmary a half step behind Rommie and skidded to a halt at the sight of a single individual that by all rights should not and could not be here.

"Dawn?" he whispered as the mystical key from Sunnydale turned towards him in shock before her eyes rolled up in her head and the youngest daughter of the fictional Joyce Summers passed out cold.


	4. Alexander 4

"What do you mean she's not real?" Xander demanded hotly of his holographic avatar as Alexander tried to explain again.

"I didn't create her, she was never a part of the Sunnydale sim, it is impossible for her to just show up there and even the idea of her being here is so absurd as to be laughable." Alexander said as he re-ran the coding for 'Sunnydale' through again trying to figure out where the young woman came from.

"Well if you didn't code her maybe your system was hacked." Xander countered and ignored his counterpart's glare.

"Oh, so someone found a Heritage class heavy cruiser floating empty in that radiation cloud, snuck onboard, found you running that sim among all those dead Nietzscheans, inserted a completely foreign entity into the Dim-World matrix 'without' corrupting the entire thing or leaving any fingerprints and then managed to get back off without tripping any alarms all while wearing a radiation hard suit. Is that what you're saying happened?" Alexander snapped while Xander simply cocked his head to one side.

"Your saying it couldn't happen?" he countered as Alexander threw his arms up in disgust.

"Of course it could happen, it would be difficult in the extreme and any possible gains would be far outweighed by the expenditure, but yes as a matter of fact it could be done." Alexander conceded before interrupting Xander's victory. "Her metamorphosis from digital to physical on the other hand is not possible in any way shape or form. This is not Pinocchio, not a fairy tale and things like that just don't happen." Alexander ranted at the android representation of himself.

"And yet," Xander said simply as he waved to the medical bed the still unconscious woman was secured to.

Considering all possibilities, Alexander finally came to a conclusion. "She was on the bridge all along. She probably was the one that reprogrammed the dim world to include herself to gain your trust then entered a stasis pod on the bridge knowing the sensors up there were out, once we made it back and the repairs got atmosphere back in command she was ejected from the pod before it self destructed using the data dump as a cover." He stated confidently.

Xander stared at the hologram for several seconds as he tried to figure out his reasoning.

Yes it was possible that was the case, it was also supported by an ungodly amount of circumstantial evidence.

So much in fact that Xander only had one response, "Are you stupid or did all those years talking to yourself finally make you as bonkers as everyone thinks we are?" Xander questioned as the AI glared at him again.

"I am not stupid and our mental faculties are in perfect working order." Alexander countered.

The argument would probably have escalated if Dawn hadn't chosen that moment to wake up.

Hearing the gasp, both turned and looked at the medical bed as the object of their debate stared back in wide eyed fear.

With a mental shrug, Alexander cut the feed from the projectors and disappeared.

Xander considered his possible responses before settling on one he hoped would work. "Miss Summers your friend is in another galaxy saving the universe… I'm his beta unit."

Dawn stared at where the two identical Xander's had been before blinking as the remaining one's words finally settled in.

"If you pull off your head I'm gonna freak." She warned as Xander smiled.

"Not even a little bit, I could be nearly headless Harris." Xander said and accepted the giggle as proof she would make it.

He would have tried to get her a bit more settled, but the mysterious purple alien known as trance Gemini walked through the door.

He watched carefully as Dawn tensed before relaxing and looking back at him. "Not a demon?" she questioned.

"Nope, what gave me away?" Trance answered for him as she set the tray of food by the bed and started looking over the charts.

"Well you look kinds like a Mergratha but they're dark purple, kinda like the Nightcrawler out of the comic books but with scales. Second clue, No scales." Dawn joked as Trance nodded at that.

"I know I hate scales, their horribly hot and when you shed its like peeling this enormous scab that covers your entire body and then you have to get rid of it, unless you eat it but then that messes up your entire…" she trailed off as she noticed Xander and Dawn's stares. "Sorry, too much information?" she asked and quickly turned and walked from the room at the two's slow nods.

Watching her go, Xander chuckled at the memories he had of a small group of people surprisingly similar to her he had helped several hundred years earlier.

Turning his attention back to Dawn, Xander smirked as he moved over to her bed. "So, if you promise not to assault anyone, I think I can get one arm free and sit you up so you don't get food all over yourself." He offered before looking at the plate of grey and green 'Stuff' that was the prescribed meal for sickbay 'unknowns' and shuddered. "Of course might I recommend taking a vow of fasting… for the next twenty years or so."

--

Dylan Hunt stared at the screen as the images showed the two interacting like old friends. "What is she?" he asked as Andromeda's Holographic avatar blinked to life beside him.

"Scans are conclusive, Native Sol primary sentient, un-modified un-enhanced no match in commonwealth databanks or any of the updated planetary databanks we have accessed since our return. Best estimation is three hundredth generation human. Blood screen chemicals are concurrent with twentieth to twenty first western hemisphere America. 'I' couldn't forge a blood chem as authentic as this." Andromeda said as she watched the two inside chat and banter back and forth. "As far as I can tell she is exactly who Xander says she is." Andromeda said as the two laughed at a shared joke.


	5. Alexander 5

Dawn stopped laughing after a moment and smiled at the only member of the Sunnydale Scooby gang that had never looked down on her. "So where am I?" she asked and took the loss of Xander's cheerful expression as a bad sign.

Taking a moment to run through all the possible answers to i that /i particular landmine of a question, Xander took a breath before starting his response. "Do you remember Vampire Willow?" he asked and continued at her nod. "You're currently in a similar position as she was."

"I'm not gonna start wearing leather and kissing myself am I?" the brunette Summers asked, concerned, as Xander snorted shortly in laughter.

"No, no kissing of yourself will be happening, but leather is entirely your choice." Xander admitted before frowning. "Of course I'll probably have to kill Shamus and Tyr if you do." The android growled to himself before shaking it off. "Anyway back on subject, you're currently in a dimension different than your own…"

As Xander explained the major differences between her world and the current one, Dawn listened in shock as her very existence was turned upside down once again.

--

Tyr Anasazi was not what one would call a sentimental being for the most part. He was born to a race of genetically enhanced humanoids where the weak died early in life and the strong ruled with an iron fist. Being the last of his Pride had hardened the fierce man further than any before save for Nietzsche himself.

Few things truly left the large being shell shocked, finding out the vessel he had been trying to steal had kept a full compliment of Forty nova bombs had been one of the few.

Standing in the corridor of the ancient High Guard cruiser was another.

"Tyr, What is it?"

Blinking at the words, the last of the Kodiak Pride looked to the speaker and blinked again. "Bekka?" he whispered, confused, before looking back at the bodies that had been part of his race over a hundred and fifty years ago. "They're Scorpion Pride." He said before checking the others. "There i all /i Scorpion Pride."

"Yes, they are."

Spinning at the words the two members of the Andromeda's crew stared as the holographic Avatar of the 'Alexander' stepped needlessly around the corpses as he made his way through himself.

"What's so big about these guys?" Bekka asked as she looked between the two.

"They are the last remnants of their species and I would be most grateful if you removed them from my decks." The holographic form said coldly as he glared at the ancient corpses of his enemies.

Seeing her confusion, Tyr continued to explain. "The Scorpion Pride never marched against the Commonwealth, they were weapons manufacturers and prison guards for the rest of the Nietzschean armies, all the High Guard and Commonwealth prisoners were guarded by Scorpion Pride for the first fifty years of the war." Tyr said before finally pulling his gaze from the AI to look at the human. "And then they were wiped out."

"Every last one, they were experimenting on the prisoners. Building bombs inside them and inserting them onto refugee ships before detonating them, exposing them to nerve agents and calculating the effects of how to make it more deadly They were also inserting psychological triggers to turn them into assassins before letting them escape and those are only a small percentage of their crimes." Alexander said before glaring back at the corpses. "The other Prides didn't know and would probably have killed them for it if they had, only they didn't get the chance."

"What happened?" Bekka asked as she looked on the dead with new disdain.

Looking up at her, Alexander smiled as the memories of his last hunt filled his memory once more. "I happened, Miss Valentine. They managed to 'detain' my Captain and infected him with a new viral form of the black plague before my crew managed to rescue him." Alexander explained sadly. "My medical facilities were unable to combat this new strain and it took him three weeks to die. After that, I declared war on the Scorpion Pride. I hunted them down and I killed them. Every… Last… One."

Any further conversation was broken off as Alarms screeched through the mostly deserted ship.

"It would seem our conversation will have to be postponed until a later date as our earlier dance partners have returned for a second song." Alexander said as he let his scans link with Andromeda's and the two cruisers turned their weapons on the advancing fleet. "I recommend you return to Andromeda at once and assist her in any way you can." The hologram said before disappearing as he focused on the advancing enemy.

Taking a moment to look at each other, Bekka and Tyr turn and sprint for the relative safety of the Marru.

--

Xander looked up from his explanation as the alarms blared as his sister updated him on the situation. "Sorry Dawn, but I'm needed." Xander said as he stood up only for Dawn to grip his arm tightly.

"I may not be entirely up to date in this universe Xander but that doesn't sound like you're being paged for a phone call." The dimensionally misplaced woman said.

"No, it's a warning letting me know that a lot of very bad people are coming to hurt you." Xander said as he tried to figure out a way to get back across to himself without hurting Dawn or getting blown away by the enemy ships.

"Take me with you."

"WHAT!" Xanders mind came to a screeching stop as he tried to find a polite way to explain how very crazy that idea was.

"I don't trust these people Xander, I i do /i trust you and I'm not about to let you go pull some hairbrained scheme to save our lives at the cost of your own." Dawn said with as much authority as she could while mostly strapped to a hospital bed.

Looking at her determination, Xander considered simply doping her up so much she wouldn't put up such a fuss before shrugging and slipping off the restraints that held her. "If we survive this, Rommy is gonna kill me." Xander moaned as Dawn jumped to her feet.

"Come on, we're just fighting for our survival here Xander, consider it a vacation." She grinned brightly up at him.


End file.
